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Nikki S. Lee

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For other people named Nikki Lee, see Nikki Lee (disambiguation).
Nikki S. Lee
On the March 2007 cover of KoreAm
Born1970 (age 53–54)
Geochang, South Gyeongsang, South Korea
Known forPhotography
Spouse
​
(m. 2007)​
AwardsThe Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award
2001 The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation
Korean name
Hangul
Revised RomanizationYi Seunghui
McCune–ReischauerYi Sǔnghui

Nikki Seung-hee Lee (이승희, born 1970)[2] is a South Korea-born visual artist, living in New York City and Seoul, that works with photography and film.[3]

Early life and education

Lee was born in Geochang, South Korea. During her childhood, Lee was exposed to a variety of foreign cultures through American media.[4] She developed an interest in learning about various cultures and their people. However, because she knew it was difficult for a woman artist to gain recognition––and because she didn't think it was particularly "cool"––she was hesitant to pursue a career in art. Lee wanted to pursue an acting career instead, but decided not to due to insecurities about her physical appearance. She also wanted to be a filmmaker but her parents didn't want her to attend cinema school. Lee thought she might get around that by going to school for photography, which her parents did accept.[5]

Lee earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography at Chung-Ang University (중앙대학교) in South Korea in 1993. After a year, she moved to New York City to study commercial photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Lee completed this program in 1996, receiving an Associate in Applied Science. She subsequently earned her Master of Arts in photography at New York University (NYU) in 1999.[6][7] During her first year at NYU, she nearly quit because it was so technical and documentary focused. She disliked that she had to go out to the streets and take photographs because she did not like "bothering people". In the years after, however, she became interested in the conceptual aspect of photography.[5]

Lee chose her "American" name, 'Nikki' after she moved to America in 1994. She asked a friend of hers to compile a list of American sounding names for her to choose from. It was not until much later that Lee found out that her friend had made the list from that month's edition of Vogue, and that "Nikki", came from the model Niki Taylor.[8]

Work

In Lee's early career, she started as a photo assistant for the LaChapelle Studio. She carried lighting, helped set up the studio, and loaded film as an intern. Although she enjoyed working for commercial photography, she was drawn to make "something of [her] own", as she had desired when she was a child. She quit her job in the fashion world and began to focus on her own work.[5]

Projects, 1997–2001

Lee's most noted series of work, Projects (1997–2001), began as a graduation requirement.[8] Photographs were of herself with twelve groups of people, as published in the photobook with the same title: Projects. They were titled according to the subculture she transformed herself to appear as: The Punk Project (1997), The Tourist Project (1997), The Young Japanese (East Village) Project (1997), The Lesbian Project (1997), The Hispanic Project (1998), The Yuppie Project (1998), The Swingers Project (1998-99), The Seniors Project (1999), The Ohio Project (1999), The Exotic Dancers Project (2000), The Skateboarders Project (2000), and The Schoolgirls Project (2000).[5] Additional projects not included in this publication were The Drag Queen Project (1997),[9] and The Hip-Hop Project (2001).[10]

In preparation for each project, Lee would select a subculture, research it, and adopt the clothing, customs, and mannerisms of the group to fully integrate herself. She would try out many types of makeup, hairstyles, and multicolored contact lenses. Then, she either got her clothes from various thrift stores or places that people of the subculture she wanted to pose as frequented.[5] For The Seniors Project, where Lee had to appear as an older woman, she had to get her makeup done professionally instead of doing the look herself––as she had done with all her other projects. Some projects required a specific skill: for The Skateboarders Project Lee had to learn how to skateboard, and for The Exotic Dancers Project she dieted and trained for three months with a personal trainer.[11] After three or more months of developing the identity, Lee would ask a person to take a picture of her with the group.[4]

The use of an automatic camera for all of the photographs in Projects provided Lee with a red timestamp, which captured the moment when the picture was taken.[12] As Lee herself was in the photos, she had her friends take them.[11] She has said that the use of this type of camera made people around her more comfortable because they were used to seeing and/or using it.[8] Though it was a lower quality camera, that did not really matter to Lee; she was more focused on investigating notions of identity and the uses of vernacular photography, instead of creating beautiful pictures.[13]

Lee was open with her intentions as an artist, that she was an artist, as she went through this process, but not all of them believed her.[14] Some of the seniors depicted in The Senior Project did not believe that Lee was actually a young woman under her old lady disguise.[5]

While Lee's projects appear completely unique from one another, there is a common thread among all of the subcultures she portrays. One such is that each of the groups she chose to create an identity has a distinctive look that functions as a connection between the members of their community. Lee's projects highlight her underlying concept of how other people make her a certain kind of person and the influence of inner relationships on the idea of identity.[15]

Since the 1990s, Lee has spoken often about her motivations behind her work. She has emphasized the importance of group identity and social performance in Asia, as opposed to the more personal sense of identity in the US. In an interview with curator RoseLee Goldberg published in 2006, she stated: "Western culture is very much about the individual, while Eastern culture is more about identity in the context of society. You simply cannot think of yourself out of context."[16]

Due to the cultural stereotypes that her transformations utilize, Lee's work in Projects has received criticism of cultural appropriation and blackface.[16][17]

Parts, 2002-2005

Lee began her Parts (2002–5) series during the fall of 2002, in London. The inspiration behind it emerged from thoughts she had as she was working on her Projects series. Her various identities in those projects drew out men of equal variety and it made her think about the way identity changes within romantic relationships. For Parts, Lee created stories around each of the heterosexual couples she depicted.[18]

In each photograph, Lee plays the role of the woman, posing in different settings with a man––a romantic partner. However, every image is cropped to make it impossible to directly see who she is with, leaving only a trace of the man, such as an arm or a foot.[13][19]

a.k.a. Nikki S. Lee (2006)

In 2006, Lee released the film, A.K.A. Nikki S. Lee. The project, described as a "conceptual documentary", alternates segments presenting Lee as two distinct personalities, one a reserved academic and another an outgoing socialite. It had its premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, October 5–7, 2006.[20] The film appears to be a true Nikki documentary, a young woman who is serious about making a second documentary about herself. Nikki No. 2, an impulsive personality, flaunts in the photo. Lee explained in an interview, "Nikki number one should be Nikki, and Nikki number two should be fake. But both are Nikki fake."[15] Through this work, she aims to point out the interesting concept of showing reality and non-reality at the same time.

Layers (2008)

One of her most recent works is Layers (2008), which is a series of photographs that show layers of the portraits she collected from 14 different cities. Lee would requests street artists to draw her portrait in which she would layer them together underneath a lightbox and take a photo of the mix. The purpose of this project was to find out how people from different cities and ethnicity would view her and describe her features. With this project, Lee asserts that everyone has complex, multilayered personalities, in which any small parts can be viewed by others of different ethnicities.[21]

Other Work

During her career, Lee's only work for a commercial magazine was with Black Book. Lee collaborated with the magazine on the theme of bourgeois, creating photographs of herself and her companion as a bourgeois couple.[22]

Personal life

In 2007, Lee married actor Teo Yoo.[23][24]

Awards

Collections

Lee's work is held in the following permanent collections:[26][27]

References

  1. ^ Yi Nam-hui (July 2011), "뉴욕이 주목한 아티스트 니키 리 [Noted New York artist Nikki Lee]", The Dong-A Ilbo, no. 622, pp. 310–315, retrieved 2011-09-29
  2. ^ Allison, Amanda (January 2009). "Identity in Flux: Exploring the Work of Nikki S. Lee". Art Education. 62 (1): 25–30. doi:10.1080/00043125.2009.11519001. ISSN 0004-3125. S2CID 194976015.
  3. ^ "Museum of Contemporary Photography". www.mocp.org. Retrieved 2019-04-26.
  4. ^ a b Lee, Phil (2008). "Indefinite "Nikkis" in a World of Hyperreality: An Interview with Nikki S. Lee". Chicago Art Journal. 18: 76–93.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Lee, Nikki S. (2001). Projects. Russell Ferguson, Gilbert Vicario, Lesley A. Martin. Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany. ISBN 3-7757-1091-4. OCLC 48209778.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ Jana, Reena (23 February 2011). "Lee, Nikki S." Grove Art Online.
  7. ^ "Nikki S. Lee". International Center of Photography. 2016-03-02. Retrieved 2023-04-08.
  8. ^ a b c Higgins, Jackie; Kozloff, Max (2014). "Nikki S. Lee". The World Atlas of Street Photography. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. pp. 42–45. ISBN 0300214545.
  9. ^ "Sold at Auction: Nikki S. Lee, First Photo from The Drag Queen Project by Nikki Lee". Invaluable. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
  10. ^ Lee, Nikki S., The Hip Hop Project (36), retrieved 2023-05-09
  11. ^ a b Photographer Nikki S. Lee Can Turn Into Anyone, retrieved 2023-05-08
  12. ^ Lee, Hyun Joo (2019). "A Passage to the Undercommons: Virtual Formation of Identity in Nikki S. Lee's Self-Transformative Performance". Cultural Critique. 104 (1): 72–100. doi:10.1353/cul.2019.0035. ISSN 1460-2458.
  13. ^ a b "Fluid Identities: The "Parts" and "Projects" of Nikki Lee". Broad Strokes: The National Museum of Women in the Arts' Blog. 1 November 2013.
  14. ^ "Collections – MoCP". collections.mocp.org. Retrieved 2023-04-09.
  15. ^ a b University of Michigan (19 August 2009), Nikki S. Lee - Parts and Projects – via YouTube
  16. ^ a b Vogel, Wendy (2020-03-26). "Twenty Years On, Nikki S. Lee's Shapeshifting Art Provokes Debates About Cultural Appropriation". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2023-04-08.
  17. ^ Kim, Eunsong (2016-05-30). "Nikki S. Lee's "Projects"—And the Ongoing Circulation of Blackface, Brownface in "Art"". contemptorary. Retrieved 2021-08-05.
  18. ^ Lee, Nikki S.; Goldberg, Roselee (2005). Parts. Hatje Cantz Verlag. ISBN 9783775716727.
  19. ^ Miller, J. Macneill (September 2007), "The Impersonal Album: Chronicling Life in the Digital Age.", Afterimage, 35 (2): 9–12
  20. ^ Lee, Phil (January 2008), ""Indefinite "Nikkis" in a World of Hyperreality: An Interview with Nikki S. Lee."", Chicago Art Journal, 18: 76–93
  21. ^ "Photographer Nikki S. Lee Can Turn Into Anyone". Architect Magazine. Retrieved 28 December 2019.
  22. ^ Waltener, Shane. "The Real Nikki." Modern Painters 17, no. 1 (2004): 67-69.
  23. ^ "Yoo Teo Says His Dream Is to Become a World-Famous Actor". ZAPZEE. 2021-02-04. Retrieved 2021-08-05.
  24. ^ Lim, Ashley. "The Project Series: A Profile on Artist Nikki Lee". The Science Survey. Retrieved 2021-08-05.
  25. ^ "2001". The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation. Retrieved 2023-04-10.
  26. ^ "Nikki S. Lee". www.sikkemajenkinsco.com. Retrieved 2020-06-04.
  27. ^ "Nikki S. Lee | artnet". www.artnet.com. Retrieved 2020-06-04.
  28. ^ "The Hispanic Project (#1)". www.moca.org. Retrieved 2021-03-12.
  29. ^ "Museum of Contemporary Photography". www.mocp.org. Retrieved 2020-06-04.
  30. ^ "Nikki S. Lee". International Center of Photography. 2 March 2016. Retrieved 2020-06-26.
  31. ^ "The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation". The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. Retrieved 2023-04-10.
  32. ^ "Results - the query [Artist:Nikki S. Lee] | COLLECTION SEARCH | FUKUOKA ASIAN ART MUSEUM". FUKUOKA ASIAN ART MUSEUM - COLLECTION SEARCH. Retrieved 2020-06-04.
  33. ^ "Nikki S. Lee | Artist Profile". NMWA. Retrieved 2021-03-12.
  34. ^ "The Hispanic Project (2)". Indianapolis Museum of Art Online Collection. Retrieved 2021-03-12.
  35. ^ "The Hispanic Project (20)". Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. 2015-03-12. Retrieved 2021-03-12.
  36. ^ "Exchange: Paris #206". exchange.umma.umich.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-12.
  37. ^ Harvard. "From the Harvard Art Museums' collections The Hip Hop Project (32)". harvardartmuseums.org. Retrieved 2021-03-12.
  38. ^ "The Yuppie Project".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  39. ^ "The Ohio Project (8)". www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved 2021-03-12.
  40. ^ "The Skateboarders Project (14)". SFMOMA. Retrieved 2021-03-12.
  41. ^ "The Hispanic Project (1) (2010-207)". artmuseum.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-12.
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